


Competitive Gaming

by deaneatscake



Series: tumblr fics [4]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: ... and also a sore loser, Candy Crush, Dean is Bad at Feelings, Games, Gaming, Jealous Dean, League of Legends - Freeform, M/M, Sudoku, yes these are valid games or sth like that
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-11
Updated: 2017-07-11
Packaged: 2018-11-30 23:23:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11473839
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deaneatscake/pseuds/deaneatscake
Summary: When Cas is done with Netflix, he picks up games.





	Competitive Gaming

**Author's Note:**

> the Asylum game Cas was talking about was Edna & Harvey: the breakout. It’s a bit old and it was a one-man project so the graphics / controls are kind of bad but it’s still so so good and you can actually interact with everything!!! If it’s on sale buy it!

When Cas is done with Netflix – and when he says done then he’s  _actually_  done with it (the fact that he doesn’t need to eat, sleep or go to the bathroom does wonders when binge-watching) – he picks up games.

He starts out small: with the odd strategy game here and there, solving sudokus in a matter of seconds and recognizing the pattern behind 2048 at first sight. (Cas says it’s because as an Angel he knows all kind of math stuff but Dean suspects he actually just sold his non-existing soul for this because  _no one_ , Angel or not, can know this much).

Then he picks up trivia games. Sam is happily indulging him but when Dean loses the fourth time in a row he waits for the Angel to fetch him a cup of coffee while he sneakily deletes all the apps on Cas’ phone. “Oh man,” he says when Cas informs him of this predicament. “Sounds like the automatic phone update kicked these apps because they’re not compatible anymore. That sucks, I’m sorry.” Thankfully, Cas believes him.

Next thing? Fucking  _Candy Crush_  (Dean shortly contemplates giving him back his trivia games). It’s Cas turn to sit shotgun when he starts playing it and needless to say, he plays it at  _full volume,_  completely lost in the game. Dean lasts two hours before snapping. “Dude, can you  _turn it down?_ ” he asks begrudgingly. Sam snorts in the backseat but doesn’t comment further.

“I’m sorry.” Cas puts his phone on mute but continues to play. Dean side-eyes Cas’ phone – he’s currently at level 67.  _How the fuck does he do this_ , he asks himself. He had picked it up once too (he was bored,  _okay_ ) but he still hasn’t made it past level 50. “It’s all about recognizing patterns ahead of time,” Cas explains and Dean wonders for a short moment if he had actually said his thoughts out aloud – but apparently Cas only wants to share.  _Overshare much_ , Dean thinks.

Cas opens his mouth again when Dean cuts him off. “Yeah whatever, I don’t care” he says. “Just turn down the volume.” And with that, he cranks up the volume on his Led Zeppelin tape.

When they get home after a long hunt Sam asks for a week off. He wants to visit Eileen and it’s not that Dean is  _against_  this – he just doesn’t know what he can do with Cas in the week they would spend alone. (Well, he has…  _ideas_ , but none of them are actually practical.)

It turns out to not be a problem because Sam leaves his laptop and Cas discovers that there are even  _more_  games than just the ones you can play on his phone. He discovers a thing called “Steam sale” (he actually does the air quotation marks) and acquires around 20 games (from  _Dean’s_  credit card).

“Look at this,” he says the second night they spend alone in the bunker. “This is a game about breaking out of an Asylum… and you can actually interact with  _everything_! Everything has a unique voice over! You can spend  _hours_  with this. All the other games I played were very straightforward. This looks so much fun, here, it’s –”

It’s ridiculous that Dean is jealous of this game but he can’t help it. “Gee, great for you, Cas,” he says sharper than intended. “Wake me up when you have something interesting to say.”

With that, he focuses his attention back onto his phone; he’s at level 52 of Candy Crush right now while Cas has been finished with this stupid game ages ago. It  _sucks_. He’s so occupied that he doesn’t notice Cas looking taken aback; after a short while, Cas answers: “I will. Good night, Dean.”

Apparently Cas finishes this game the same night because when Dean is strolling into the kitchen the next morning Cas is playing some kind of online multiplayer game. “What happened to – this Asylum thingy?” he asks, trying not to sound overly invested in the answer. He  _doesn’t_  care. If Cas wants to spend his time playing stupid games, that’s  _fine_.

“Oh,” Cas doesn’t even look up. “It was… well, it wasn’t as engaging as I’ve thought it was. It kind of got…” – he makes a small pause, sighing – “Repetitive, I think. I finished it without exploring everything.”

Dean doesn’t answer. Instead, he pours himself a cup of coffee that Cas had already brewed. “I’ve started a new game,” Cas says tentatively. “League of Legends. It’s an only… multiplayer game with very interesting characters. Although I have to say, the portrayal of mystic figures is actually quite inaccurate. But it’s enjoyable nonetheless. You can also… team up.”

“Cool.” Dean takes a sip. It tastes great – he hasn’t actually expected anything less from Cas. He always knows how Dean wants his coffee. It warms his heart more than he wants to.

“I was thinking –” Cas stops and starts hacking on the keyboard. “Oh no no no no, this is…  _bullshit_. There’s  _no way_  that hit me.” He slams the mouse on the table before he realizes that it’s not actually his. Dean stills. He has never actually heard Cas swearing; it’s surprisingly endearing.

With the cup of coffee in hand he makes his way out of the kitchen. He doesn’t want to hear what Cas thinks, if he wants to play another game or if he wants to have Dean’s credit card again in order to buy his own laptop to play even more games, he doesn’t  _care_. He wonders how many times he has to tell this himself before he actually believes it. “I’m in my room,” he says dismissively. Cas doesn’t answer, still swearing quietly.

Back in his room he opens his own laptop and looks up this game. It seems… complicated. Well, actually not so much – the premise is rather simple – but there are more than 100 champions available. Dean looks at his phone, stuck at level 57 in Candy Crush.

There has to be a way he’s actually good at  _something_ , right? There’s no way Cas can engage in this kind of stuff and always  _beat_  him. It’s ridiculous. If Cas is so occupied with this stuff, he can do it too. It’s not like he has something else to do. He hits “download”.

The first few games he’s hilariously bad. It’s not even funny. He has never been a huge gamer; except from a few arcades he hit up as a kid and two or three Android games he hasn’t played anything in his life. He plays against bots, not even real players, but they still stomp him every time. It’s infuriating.

It’s not until the late afternoon he realizes he will have to come out of his room if only to fix something to eat. Of course, when he walks into the kitchen Cas is still playing this stupid game. And he’s actually  _good_  at it. When Dean sneaks a look at the monitor Cas is apparently having 13 kills and hasn’t died once. “This is bullshit,” he says and realizes too late that he just said this out loud.

Cas frowns. “What is bullshit?” he says while furiously clicking the mouse.

“How are you so  _good_  at this? You started  _today_!” This  _can’t_  be some kind of Angel thing, right? Why is he just so good at  _everything_? It’s fucking unfair.

“Well, I did a lot of reading before starting this game,” he explains casually. “And my Grace allows me to issue commands faster than a normal human can do. It’s almost like cheating… I think.”

“That’s bullshit,” Dean repeats. “I bet I could beat you.” (There’s actually no way in hell, heaven or earth that he can beat Cas. The last game he played he wasn’t able to cancel the walk command because he forgot the correct key. But he’s not going to admit that, thank you very much.)

“Dean, this is not –” Cas turns around, game momentarily forgotten. “I don’t want to play  _against_  you.”

“Why, afraid you’ll lose?” He should let it slide, he knows, but it’s so  _unfair_ , Cas is paying this stupid game and giving it more attention than Dean in the last few days and he’s so  _good_  at it and Dean feels so  _bad_  and  _useless_  and –

Cas sighs, turning back to the laptop. “Fine, I’ll play you. But only for a price.”

“What price?”

“I’ll tell you when I’ve won.”

“Great. Then I’ll – I’ll only tell you what I want when  _I_  win!” he answers intelligently and goes back to his room to retrieve his laptop (the pizza is still in the freezer, forgotten). He doesn’t even know what he would  _want_  even if there was any chance to win – other than Cas giving  _him_  attention instead of his stupid games of course.

As expected, the first humiliation starts when he doesn’t even manage to start a new game with just Cas as his opponent. “Dean, you have never even  _played_  this game,” Cas says exasperated while he sets up the game. “Are you sure you want to do this?”

“Sure I played this game, Cas,” he answers (it’s not necessarily wrong). “There’s apparently a lot you don’t know about me.” Cas just stares at him without answering.

Needless to say, it goes bad. He doesn’t know what is happening on the monitor, he doesn’t even know the  _champion_  Cas is playing, let alone his own one. It’s all a huge explosion of various visual effects and he dies the first time before they even hit three minutes. Cas tries to supply him with helpful tips but Dean doesn’t listen. He doesn’t  _need_  Cas’ help.

After not even 15 minutes he loses the game. “You got lucky,” he grumbles. “That was just because I’m hungry. I’m gonna get some pizza.” And with that he stands up and walks to the freezer. He doesn’t want to listen to Cas rubbing the victory in his face and – whatever, wanting him to buy him  _more_  games as a winner prize.

“Dean,” Cas says quietly and Dean stills. “You haven’t heard my price yet.”

“What, Cas?” he asks annoyed while picking up his pizza. At least he’ll have something nice to eat when Cas calls him out on how bad he is.

“I want to play games with you.”

“ _What_?” Dean repeats and turns around. “We just played if you didn’t notice. I  _lost_.”

“No, we didn’t play. We fought. I don’t want to fight against you. I want to play with you. I want to teach you stuff, laugh about stuff, look at stuff with you. I want… to play  _with_  you.”

Dean’s at a loss of words. “What?” he repeats a third time. The pizza lies on the counter top, forgotten again.

“I’ve been trying to play with your for day –  _weeks_!” Cas says gruffly. “But you never listened. Now, I know you’re not actually interested in all these things but I won fair and square so you owe me at least… an hour. It’s lonely just… sitting in front of the laptop doing nothing but playing.”

If Dean wasn’t the emotional compromised potato he was he would very well start to cry now (out of joy, relief or embarrassment he’s not yet sure). “Dude… I wanted to do this for days too!” he blurts out.

Cas squints. “You sure didn’t look like that,” he says. Dean blushes. “You never  _once_ let me actually suggest this.”

“Yeah, well, this is why you should never listen to me. I thought you just want to – you know… play your stupid games alone and… stuff. I – I’d love to play with you.” He hopes he doesn’t have to say more, to actually apologize or – whatever.

But Cas apparently doesn’t hold a grudge. “Let’s play the Asylum game again,” he says, his face immediately lightening up. “There’s tons of stuff I want to try out, come on, sit down” – Dean obeys – “see, the premise is that you’re in a padded cell and you have to go back in time to – no I don’t want to spoil this, come on, I want to see how you’re doing, and after that I can show you how to actually equip your ultimate in League of Legends, you didn’t actually use it once…”

It goes all right over Dean’s head but Cas is so enthusiastic that he can’t bring himself to ask Cas to say it slower. Cas casually moves Dean’s chair even nearer to him and explains him in excruciating detail how to solve this game. It’s actually distracting to listen to him while their shoulders and thighs brush against each other but he doesn’t care.

This is what he wanted; he doesn’t actually feel bad despite the fact that Cas is very obviously lecturing him. He doesn’t do it in a condescending kind of way; he’s actually very eager to share his knowledge – with  _Dean_. And when their gazes meet and linger much longer than strictly necessary – well, that’s actually a nice feeling.

They need more than 20 hours to finish the game before moving on the League of Legends again; when Sam comes back they’re both sitting at the war table, looking concentrated while playing a match. “Dean, no, you have to – no, don’t just  _hit_  that, you need to wait until it’s low enough to die –” – “Come on Cas, this little guy was obviously about to fall over –” – “It’s called a  _minion_  and no it  _wasn’t_ , otherwise you wouldn’t have missed it –”

Sam just watches them for a short while; they only acknowledge him with a short nod before turning their attention back to the game. He notices sitting them way closer than they could possibly need to; Cas even has to hold his arm at a funny angle in order not to brush against Dean with every move. Sam shakes his head and smiles; maybe he should get another laptop. These things obviously work magic where he can’t.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm also on [tumblr](mijrake.tumblr.com)! If you liked this fic you can help spreading it around by [reblogging](https://mijrake.tumblr.com/post/162636998593/competitive-gaming-2335-words-when-cas-is-done) it because tumblr sucks and my fics don't show up in the search. :P


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